The End of the Beginning

A Sermon Preached by Reverend Patricia Rowe-Jones

Poland Community Church, UCC

November 26, 2000

The Bible is a complex piece of literature; it is a history, an anthology, a genealogy, full of various styles of classic literature not to mention the definitive word of God. There are certain parts of the bible that one needs guidance and instruction to understand properly. I know a lady; she is 96 years old, and every day for the past 50 years she has read two chapters from the New Testament. Just last week we were having a conversation about her faithful bible reading; and then, almost as if she were admitting a sin, she whispered to me: “I’m not really too fond of the book of Revelation, Are you? I mean, I don’t really understand it? Do you? I prefer the gospels” And isn’t it the same with most of us, too! If we were to be honest, the book of Revelation with all of its strange visions, eerie sounds, and jolting images is scary and confusing. And it doesn’t help when wild-eyed interpreters offer us curious interpretations of the future, turning to Revelation and often neglecting the rest of the Bible. It is no wonder that many Christians are afraid of this work that is clearly a part of our biblical canon that we proclaim as God’s word. Even so, the book of Revelation is also one of our greatest undiscovered treasures. And like those who are presently taking our morning bible study will tell you, it was first addressed as a letter to the church during uncertain and dangerous times. The original name of the book is the “Apocalypse” which means a disclosure. In the Bible, an apocalypse is a moment when God pulls back the curtain that hides heaven from earth. The Revelation offers glimpses of a holy reality, which is normally hid from our eyes. Today we hear a voice from heaven announcing, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” That unusual expression appears three times in the final book of the Bible. Each time the voice speaks; we learn something about God that is crucial to our faith and life. The first insight has to do with a simple observation about language. When God says, “I am the Alpha and Omega,” alumni/ae of college fraternities will take note, for they hear God equating himself with the two letters from the Greek alphabet. In a Bible full of words, God announces he is made known through the letters from human alphabets. These letters combine into words, Words are spoken, God’s speech makes a world. That is how it was in the beginning, and how it shall be in God’s new creation. The primary tools used by the Creator of heaven and earth are words. Whenever God speaks, something happens. Hear the word of God in John “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; without him was not anything that was made . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Father,) full of grace and truth. I’d like to read to you some words of the great theologian Frederick Buechner that are inspired by John’s prologue. Buechner speaks about the power of God to create each new day. It is a creative, holy force expressed through words. As he writes it:” Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said, “Let there be light,” Darkness laps at my sleeping face like a tide, and God says,” Let there be Buechner.” Why not? Out of the primeval chaos of sleep God calls me to be a life again…To wake up is to be given back your life again. To wake up is be to given back the world again and of all possible worlds…Waking into the new day, we are all of us Adam on the morning of creation, and the world is ours to name. Out of many fragments we are called to put back together a self again. “Every morning, the word that puts us back together is the same word that spoke the world into being. If God has been around since the first day of creation, God has seen it all heart it all, and spoken it all. Certainly God does not speak any new words that he has not spoken before. In fact, when God declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the words echo a passage from the prophet Isaiah’s poetry where God says “I am the first and the last” (That is from Isaiah 44: 6) As scholars point out, there is no new word spoken in the book of Revelation. Of the 404 verses of this book, there are 518 allusions to earlier passages of scripture. The writer of this book points to the books of Exodus, Daniel, Zechariah, and the Psalms, among others. John does not simply string together words from books, so much as he points to the one Word in which all others words are held together. Ever since Genesis, God has spoken a lot of words. By the time we arrive at the book of Revelation, only one Word captures all God has to say, and that is the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. John points us to Jesus as the central Word in the vocabulary of faith. And this is a constant reminder to the church that always stands in danger of slipping out of God’s truth in Christ. One cute story is about a minister who wasn’t getting the expected response on her weekly masterpiece. Insecurity led her to ask a wise friend from the congregation: “How did I do this morning?” at first the friend just mumbled a few pleasantries but the preacher persisted” No, really, I want to know what you thought of what I said in my sermon today.” “Sorry, said the friend, “I wasn’t listening to you; I was too busy paying attention to Jesus.” Now that is good preaching. Behind every preacher, prayer, or scripture passage, the wise person listens for the Word beyond all human words. Jesus Christ is the One Word of God, which we have to hear, and which we have to obey in life and in death. When God reveals Himself as the Alpha and the Omega, then a voice in a vision goes on to say, “I am the first and the last (Rev. 1:17), 22: 13. God along speaks the first and last words on human life. No other person, power or principality can say what God alone can say. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. The faithful church lives in this promise. While Revelation is full of unsettling visions and disturbing pictures, the first word of this book is identical to the last word. The beginning and the end are the same. As the writer addresses this book to the church, he greets them by saying, “Grace to you, and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come (Rev. l:4). As the book comes to an end, the last words are, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all Saints.” In between there is much in this book that unsettles a sensitive stomach. But the first word and the last word are the same…and the word is grace. It is a word that God alone can say. Think about God’s grace and the love that inspired God to reach out to you and to me through Jesus, then, reach back! AMEN!